Essay on Child Labour and The Industrial Revolution

E.P Thompson’s claim that Child labour in the Indistrial Revolution is one of the most disappointing events in our history is irrefutable. The Industrial Revolution was the massive change in economy between 1760 and 1914 due to the introduction of new machinery and the way machinery was used.  Child labour is the exploitation of children and deriving them of a normal childhood. In the Industrial Revolution, Child Labour can be deemed as destructive on a large scale, resulting in being forced into intense working environments and the devastatingly severe living conditions. Therefore, the exploitation of little children can be judged as disturbingly disappointing.  

Child Labour in the Industrial Revolution marterialised in a collosal scale by forcing children to live in horrible living conditions. Children lived in congested lodgements, while working in unhygienic factories and mines. Their rooms were tiny and poorly ventilated, not sanitised and diseases spread easily. In ‘A Memoir of Robert Blincoe’ (1832), reliable as it recounts first hand experience, it states that ‘I crept into my bed -  shared with an older boy - and the smell of oily clothes…made me ill’. This memoir proves that the living conditions that these boys were forced into were petrifyingly overcrowded to the extent where boys had to share beds, adding to the discomfort of the prominent smell of their clothes.  Another dependable source that shows the large scale of work children faced, through first hand experience, in the Revolution is in ‘Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management’. It entails ‘The…maid-of-all-work perhaps deserves the most pity. Her work is never done’. This suggests that young girls were forced to do as much work as their master pleases. They were ‘treated more roughly than any other servant’. Consequently, children being forced to live in ghastly living conditions as a result of the vast scale of Child labour can be determined as upsettingly disappointing.

The Industrial Revolution resulted in vigorously intense working environments for Child Labourers. Children that worked as chimney sweepers during the Revolution are a clear example of hostile working conditions. The ‘Consideration on the Present State of Chimney Sweepers’ (1792), authentic as the details come directly from an observation conducted by a Parliament representative, shows the repercussions and the job of an apprentice chimney sweeper is compared to a boy ‘in a wintry morning exposed to the harsh blast of falling snow, trudging the streets half naked, his sore feet bleeding, his arms and legs freezing cold…master driving him beyond his strength’. This implies the atrociousness of the working conditions faced by children during the Revolution. A photograph showing a group of chimney sweeps from the 19th century, shows young boys covered in soot from shimmying up and down chimneys. This photograph is dependable as it visually represents the horrid consequences of children working as chimney sweepers. In the distressing ‘A Memoir of Robert Blincoe’ (1832), Robert talks about a girl ‘not quite 10 years old’ who ‘caught her apron on the shaft of the spinning machine’.  The paragraph describes the agonising details of the ‘bones in her arms, legs, thighs snap, crushed’, as she was drawn by the ‘irresistible force’ of the Spinning Jenny. This effectively tells us the outcome of young children operating perilous machinery. Ultimately, children working in heart-rendingly intense environments as result of Child Labour can be esteemed as horrifyingly disappointing.

The exploitation of little children in the Industrial Revolution was one of the most disappointing events in our history. Although people can proclaim that they can be a profitable resource for a cheap price and the jobs they do require small bodies, the terribly intense working environments and the unrestrained living conditions on a large scale resulted in rancid consequences. Therefore, E.P. Thompson’s claim that “The exploitation of little children, on this scale and with this intensity, was one of the most disappointing events in our history” has been proven through the use of historical records.